Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Magoosh

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Industry
  
Education, Internet

Headquarters
  
Berkeley

Founded
  
2009

Type of business
  
Educational Technology

Key people
  
Founders: Bhavin Parikh, Hansoo Lee Investors: Michael Berolzheimer, David Charron, Richard Chen, Warren Hellman, Mitch Kapor, Jack Larson, Keith Ogata, Devon George, Chris Heid, William Vederman, Joshua Lagenthal, 500 Startups

Founders
  
Vikram Shenoy, Pejman Pour-Moezzi, Bhavin Parikh, Hansoo Lee

Profiles

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Magoosh [pronunciation: mə’guːʃ] (a play on the Old Persian word magush, which refers to a wise person) is an online test preparation company based in Berkeley, California that teaches students through video lessons, practice test questions, and online email support. Magoosh provides test preparation materials for the GRE, GMAT, TOEFL, SAT, ACT, LSAT, MCAT and Praxis and aims to make test preparation more enjoyable, affordable, and effective. The company also has free mobile apps for both iPhone and Android.

Contents

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History

Magoosh was founded in 2009 by Hansoo Lee, Bhavin Parikh, and Pejman Pour-Moezzi while they were students at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

In June 2009, Magoosh released its first product—GMAT math practice questions with video explanations. They got their first paying customers a couple months later in August.

Over the next two years, as Magoosh's customer base began to expand, the GMAT product and the Magoosh team continued to grow. Pejman stepped away from the business in 2010 to pursue other opportunities but remained on the board. Hansoo and Bhavin hired two full-time employees and, with them on board, developed a new prep program for the GRE. In August 2011, Magoosh launched their 'New GRE' product for the revised GRE and later renamed it 'Magoosh GRE' once the reformatted GRE became standard.

In December 2011, Magoosh gave away 800 free SAT accounts to high school students through partnerships with Bay Area non-profit organizations. It was also around this time that Bhavin's co-founder Hansoo Lee was diagnosed with a rare case of non-smokers' lung cancer and had to remove himself from daily operations.

In March 2013, shortly after Magoosh hit profitability, Hansoo Lee lost his battle with cancer at the age of 35. Bhavin Parikh and former co-founder Pejman Pour-Moezzi, along with Lee’s fiancee Wendy Lim, founded The Hansoo Lee Fellowship for Entrepreneurs, which is used each year to support Haas MBA students wishing to pursue their entrepreneurial ventures full-time.

After Hansoo's passing, Bhavin became the CEO and the only remaining co-founder of Magoosh. The company continued to grow, launching full preparation products for the TOEFL and SAT from late 2013 to 2014. In 2015, it launched full prep programs for the ACT, LSAT and Praxis exams. And in 2016, the company launched a full MCAT product. To date, Magoosh has about 30 in-office employees at its offices in downtown Berkeley and more than 1.5 million students have used Magoosh's web and mobile apps to prepare for standardized exams. The company has been ranked by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. and by Entrepreneur magazine as one of the best entrepreneurial companies in America. Magoosh plans to expand into several new exams in the coming years and to release its first-ever GRE book to be sold on Amazon (coming 2017).

Recognition

  • San Francisco Business Times No. 21 Fastest-Growing Private Company in the Bay Area (2016)
  • Entrepreneur 360 No. 111 Best Entrepreneurial Company in the U.S. (2016)
  • Inc. 500 No. 186 Fastest-Growing Private Company in the U.S. (2016)
  • Localwise Best Employer: Education (2016)
  • San Francisco Business Times No. 5 Fastest-Growing Private Company in the Bay Area / No. 2 Fastest Growing Company in the East Bay (2015)
  • TINYpulse Happiest Company in Education (2015)
  • Intel Foundation Entrepreneurial Award (2010)
  • North Bridge Venture Partners Competition (2010)
  • UC Berkeley Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology Venture Lab Competition (2009)
  • References

    Magoosh Wikipedia